“My head would turn the abstract numbers and pictures into images I’m familiar with, and then try to make stories with the images.”

— Li Wei, a 25-year-old Shenzhener who won third place at the 20th World Memory Championships held in Guangzhou in December

Helen Deng

IT was a war without gunfire. Each competitor sat in front of a desk, on which there were two decks of poker cards. One deck of cards had been put into a certain order. The competitors’ job was to remember the order, and apply it on the other deck of cards. The quickest competitor would win.

Li Wei took only 49 seconds to accomplish the task. The 25-year-old Shenzhener won third place at the 20th World Memory Championships held in Guangzhou in December. It was the best performance by a Shenzhener in the history of the World Memory Championships, the world’s most prestigious test of memory. The annual competition was founded by Tony Buzan and Raymond Keene OBE.

“Ten years ago, psychologists believed that a human being could not remember the order of a deck of poker cards within three minutes,” said Li. Li once tested the theory on his co-workers at the China Nuclear Power Engineering Co. Ltd., and the best two players remembered about 30 cards within five minutes.

Li Wei also had to accomplish other tasks to win third place, such as remembering 370 abstract images within 15 minutes (an average person could remember no more than 50 images within that time), and remembering 2,400 binary numbers within 30 minutes. A total of 130 competitors from 19 countries and regions took part.

Li won ninth place in last year’s competition, becoming the first Grand Master of Memory in Shenzhen. To gain that title, one has to remember 520 poker cards within one hour, remember 1,000 digits within one hour, and remember the order of one deck of poker cards within two minutes, according to rules set by the World Memory Sports Council.

“I was not born with a good memory,” said Li, who began to learn memory skills until 2009, learning from friends and books.

The most important tool for a good memory, said Li, was imagination. “My head would turn the abstract numbers and pictures into images I’m familiar with, and then try to make stories with the images,” he said.

“For example, to remember the binary digits, I would use one decimal digit to represent three binary digits, and then use a familiar image to represent every two decimal digits.” The combination of the numbers “1” and “3” thus becomes the image of “doctor.” (The Chinese word for doctor sounds similar to “13.”)

Li would also create a cabinet in the head and put the images to different layers of the cabinet. “Suppose you have a cabinet with five layers. Each layer has two drawers, numbered 1 and 2. To remember the pokers, you make two pokers into one image, and put the image into one drawer. And then you make a story out of the images on the same layer. Thus you can remember the order of 20 cards,” he said.

Li is a graduate of Wuhan University, where he studied energy power systems and automation. He is now a technician of the China Nuclear Power Engineering Co. Ltd. His good memory improved his work efficiency, he said, adding that he once compiled a poem to help remember the codes of machines.

“Winning the Championship boosted my confidence. The news of me winning the competition created a sensation in my company. Every time the company holds a knowledge competition, my co-workers would ask me to attend,” he said.

Li said he would practice his memory skills whenever possible. He spent a lot of time remembering plate numbers, and as a result, he remembers hundreds of car plate numbers at Daya Bay.

Will he feel tired after storing so many things in his head? Li’s answer is no. “Human beings use no more than 5 percent of their brain throughout their lives. How can I feel tired?” he said.

Can he apply the memory skills on poker games and remember the order of cards when they are being re-shuffled?

The answer is no, said Li. “It takes no more than 10 seconds to reshuffle a deck of cards, but the world record for remembering the order of a deck of cards is 24 seconds.”